Eric's Beijing Diary

Yesterday morning I took my passbook to the Bank of China to draw out a little money. They told me I could not do it, because my passbook is only valid in the Beijing area. I also had a passbook for ICBC with me. But when I went to that bank, I got the same response. This is confusing to me. I have used the bank cards for both banks all over China. But my cards were stolen so I cannot use them. I had put my passbooks in my luggage as a failsafe. Not a very good one, as it turned out.

In the afternoon, I went to the train station to see about a ticket. No soft sleeper. No hard sleeper. No soft seat. No hard seat. That would seem to be it. At least, that's what I tell everybody--that there are four categories of tickets in China. There is actually a fifth: No seat. A "no seat" ticket has no car number and no seat number on it. You get on the train, but you have to stand in the aisle. It is China's way of dealing with the massive number of laobaixing who want to travel during the national holiday. I have purchased a ticket like this before. It was last year, when I was teaching in Zhengzhou, and took a day trip to Kaifeng. It's a mad cattle rush, as everyone tries to be the first one to get a seat. But after all, that was only a one-hour run.

I told the guy at the window I would think about it, especially since they were not even selling "no seat" tickets for yesterday. Only for today. I went to the local police station near the train station and worked with the officer there to fill out a report on the theft. His English was not strong, but he was very nice and very helpful. Somehow, we managed to communicate.

After filling out the police report, I went back to the train station, and decided to buy the ticket. Strangely, the guy I had talked to before seemed to have gone off duty, so I ended up going to a different window. The lady told me that they actually did have a soft sleeper ticket for the evening. But alas, I did not have enough money for that. So I decided to buy the "manche" (slow train) ticket. Pity.

This little restaurant/coffee bar is called "Provence" (not sure why the French name), and is located across the canal from the Youth Hostel. The proprietors are from Taiwan, and the lady who works here told me that I am the third person this week in their coffee bar who has had a wallet stolen.